With a particular love for finding creativity in the ordinary as well as research and writing, Ellie’s work tend to focus on branding and editorial design but she likes when there is opportunity to try something different.

Behind Labels

Behind Labels is a self-initiated project with my own personal collection of beer bottles, which have been accumulated from different countries and breweries over the past few years out of a love for packaging design and beer, as a starting point. The result ended up being a fictional exhibition to celebrate the work and creativity behind labels, both in terms of beer and design.

The outcomes included a promotional poster, website, flyer and zine for the exhibition. The logo is hand drawn and in the same format as the standard, rectangular bottle label.

This project was an exploration of beer label design and branding- in particular how it has become an art form of its own but also in what ways designers go about representing the liquid on their labels. So in addition to looking at my collection and recognising the different styles used across those bottles, I set out to find out as much I could about the people behind them and their thoughts on their work. The findings are presented in a zine, which goes through the breweries by different style categories.

Multi- Cultural Patterns

Multi- Cultural Patterns is an exploration of my own two cultures, Swedish and Iranian, through screen printing and pattern design. Looking at the characteristics of the traditional Swedish pattern Kurbit and the traditional Iranian pattern Buta as well as ways to intertwine them in order to create my own mixed culture pattern.

After experimenting with the styles separately to begin with, taking the different elements apart and reassembling them, I combined parts of it to create new interpretations of the different styles. By drawing a linear illustration structure next to a U- shape, I was able to mirror it after printing one half of the paper to create a seamless pattern. The colour gradient became a way of combining the bright colours of the Kurbit with the more somber ones of the Buta.

All patterns were first illustrated by hand then scanned and retouched digitally in order to be printed as a negative to be used to develop the screens.